


Teen Wolf, Season 1, Episode 7, Night School

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e07 Night School, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for both the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Teen Wolf, Season 1, Episode 7, Night School

Open to Scott and Stiles in the school, and they realise the bolt cutters outside are outside.

In canon, Stiles himself somewhat acknowledges his morality is not black-and-white. The sheriff and Scott both largely see things in black-and-white, though, the sheriff is more capable of recognising when he needs to bend and doing so. When he does, he’ll often acknowledge it.

Stiles often tries to claim he’s only out for himself, but this isn’t true. What is true is: His loved ones are worth the world. He’d burn the world down if it meant they’d stay still be standing afterwards and have a chance at being safe and happy. If saving innocents isn’t going to put his loved ones in danger, he’d sacrifice himself if it meant saving an innocent. Whether he’s merciful or not to those who have wronged his loved ones depends on how bad the wrong was. He’s always the last person he considers, and even then, that’s largely the non-arrogant knowledge his loved ones need him to continue being safe.

Of course, Stiles goes back out to the get the bolt cutters. Scott’s the werewolf, but he never had a chance to even decide to do this, because, Stiles could and would have found a way to temporarily disable him just so that he wouldn’t.

Alpha Peter runs toward Stiles, but Stiles gets safely back in.

They run to a classroom, and Stiles accuses Deaton of being the alpha.

Stiles often has a sixth sense when it comes to the villains of the show, but it’s not infallible. For one thing, Julia/Jennifer somehow managed to stay under his radar until she revealed herself, and I’ll have a lot to say about Malia when she appears. Deaton’s shady, and he might be up to no good, but here Stiles is wrong about him.

They decide to get to Roscoe, and Scott has the idea to go out the window. Stiles nixes this due to the school being climate-controlled, and thus, the windows can’t be opened. I’m going to remember this line during my review of an episode in the third season. Scott suggests breaking it, but Stiles points out this will make a lot of noise.

Then, Scott sees Roscoe’s hood is dented, and alpha Peter straight up chucks some big car part through the window. Dark, yes, but also: Heh.

Next, they decide to go to the locker room due to it having less windows.

Here’s the thing: I don’t know if the boiler room is due to unreliable narration or not, but either way, it’s stupid. No modern school should have a boiler room. However, I wouldn’t be so irritable if the show could was, at least, consistent about it. Either it has it or it doesn’t. Since it does in later seasons, it should here. Or if it wasn’t in the writing plans here, it shouldn’t have popped up in later seasons.

Also, the school supposedly has a basement in later seasons, but I don’t find that near as hard to believe as a modern school having a boiler room.

If Stiles weren’t around, I could be okay with neither idea being brought up, but the idea Stiles doesn’t know about and consider any such rooms doesn’t compute.

In the locker room, Scott wants Stiles to call Sheriff S, and Stiles refuses due to a fear it’ll kill any cops who arrive. I believe this happened. Scott is sensible here, scared yet showing common sense, but Stiles will let them both die before he’ll risk the alpha hurting his dad. He’ll try everything else to save Scott, but his dad is the one person, the one thing, he’d turn on his other loved ones for.

They decide they’ll get out, take the keys from Derek, and take his car. Scott says they’ll also take his body, and Stiles dismissively agrees.

Part of why I ship Sterek is due to the characters progressing from wary, gritted, often dismissive tolerance of one another to being so important to one another. Sterek didn’t happen, but canonically, Stiles and Derek did come to love one another.

Hearing something, they hide in lockers.

I never spent much time in locker rooms as a teenager, and so, I genuinely don’t remember if they had lockers big enough for a normal-sized teenage person to fit into, but I do remember the lockers used for books and the like wouldn’t have held anything bigger than a small toddler. Shows where characters were stuffed in lockers by bullies have always puzzled me.

The scene is suitably creepy, and then, it turns out a night janitor has come. Stiles tries to get him to listen, he’s angry at their supposed tomfoolery, and after throwing them out of the room, he’s killed by alpha Peter.

Rest in peace, night janitor. You didn’t deserve this.

Scott tries to open the door to help him, and Stiles drags him away. This part could go either way on the unreliable narration front. I can believe Scott did this, but I can also believe he’d add such a detail just to make himself look more heroic.

Over at the Argent house, Jackson has called Allison to tell her he and Lydia are coming to get her. Asking him not to, she insists Scott will arrive soon.

It turns out, Jackson has Lydia on speaker, and I do admire her refusal to let Allison make any excuses for Scott, but I don’t like her comparing him being late to domestic abusers.

Also, Allison has a car. Even if she’s grounded from it, I don’t believe Chris would let Scott pick her up. If she told him about them being lab partners, he’d insist Scott come over to their house. Last episode where she said she got them to be lab partners so that he could come over basically confirms this.

If Allison’s snuck out, then, she’s been standing in her driveway for almost thirty minutes without her mother, father, or aunt noticing and questioning this?

Right.

Jackson pulls up. “Lydia gets what Lydia wants.”

Allison gets a text from Scott, or more accurately, a text with Scott’s name at the bottom.

At school, alpha Peter is still chasing the duo around.

Then, Jackson pulls up to the school with Lydia and Allison. Seeing an open door, Allison goes in after a genuinely nice moment between her and Jackson that makes Lydia jealous.

Going off-topic slightly, canon never defines Jackson’s sexuality with a label. He was with Lydia, and then, he was with Ethan. Lydia’s reaction to finding out can be read different ways. My personal read is he’s bisexual. I do believe he and Lydia genuinely love one another, and I do believe they were sexually attracted to one another, but their relationship was never a healthy one. It was built on all the wrong things.

Part of what makes watching them so frustrating is the fact they both know this. They know they’re both unhappy with who they are, they know the relationship doesn’t give them any real happiness, and yet, they insist on staying together for far too long.

Back to the scene, I don’t think Peter himself had anything to do with these three showing up. Someone involved with Peter did. Whether it was Nurse Jennifer, Deaton, both, or someone else, I’m not sure.

Alpha Peter had some agency, but he was also being controlled. Despite his feral status, he does retain some measure of human intelligence, and he’s going after those who took down his pack. Scott is an interest to him, because, right now, there’s a pack-link between them.

Over to the duo, Stiles’s association with keys make its first appearance as he uses some keys to trap the alpha in a room.

Outside, there’s rain water on Jackson’s car, and Jackson notices Roscoe’s messed up hood. Lydia overreacts to Jackson wanting to take a look.

Why?

This could be an early brewing of Lydia’s banshee status and/or her connection to Peter, but the scene comes across as more disjointed than anything.

Right now, they don’t know there’s anything dangerous. They’re just waiting for a friend to come out. For all Lydia isn’t impressed with Scott and doesn’t even register Stiles, she doesn’t think Allison’s in any danger from either boy.

Jackson isn’t showing any fear or true unease. He tells his girlfriend to stay in the car, but I don’t get the impression he thinks there’s anything seriously wrong. Frankly, I think, at this point, if he did, he’d be driving as fast as he could away from the school and _maybe_ telling Lydia to call the police as he did so.

Lydia, however, is all whiny, damsel in distress for no clear reason.

Note: I don’t knock all damsels in distress. If I were in a horror movie, there’s a good chance I’d one of the first to die. More than this, I’d probably be one of the annoying characters that cause the audience to cheer when my death did come. However, there’s a subset of extremely annoying damsel in distress characters that I always hate when they show up. In this scene, Lydia is reminding me of them.

They discover the claw marks on Roscoe, and there are hints of what Jackson will one day be.

The two go inside, and speaking of inside, Scott and Stiles still have alpha Peter contained.

Stiles wants to get a good look at said trapped alpha, and I’m on Scott’s side: “Are you crazy?”

Going further, Stiles taunts alpha Peter, and this works wonderfully. They hear alpha Peter manage to escape the room via some way other than the blocked door.

Scott, smack him. Please.

Realising he’s in the ceiling, they run.

In another part of the school, Allison’s trying to find Scott, and there’s a cool shot of alpha Peter just causally walking in the background. Heh. She turns just as he makes a corner.

Elsewhere, Jackson is annoyed with Lydia having to use the bathroom, and I like Lydia’s response so much I wish I fully transcribe it. Unfortunately, there’s one word I can’t make out, but she brings up the fact needing to use the bathroom is a basic biological function.

Jackson replies, “You know, I’m starting to have a problem with all of your functions.”

I’m on her side, and no doubt, he’s being a jerk, but I enjoyed that line, too.

She goes into the bathroom, and seeing upright alpha Peter in the shadows, he thinks it’s Scott. Uneasiness quickly settles over him, and he tries, “Scott? Derek?”

Getting on all fours, alpha Peter shows himself but doesn’t come near.

Lydia comes out, and rubbing his neck, Jackson decides what he saw was just another hallucination.

Allison’s in the swimming room, and remember water=bad in Teen Wolf.

Someone calls her phone, and Scott hears the ringing.

After she hangs up from talking to who I’m assuming was either Lydia or Jackson, Scott calls from Stiles’s phone and orders her to get to the lobby.

The three meet, and she shows him the text. Stiles asks if she drove, and she tells them about Jackson and Lydia giving her a ride. Speaking of, they arrive, and then, alpha Peter bursts out of the ceiling.

They all run.

In a classroom, everyone but Stiles is trying to bar the doors. Again, he brings up all the windows.

Allison is freaking out, Scott doesn’t know what to tell the three, and Stiles announces the night janitor is dead, and whoever killed him is also targeting them, now.

Scott claims Derek is the killer.

Why aren’t any of the three bringing up the beast-like creature they all saw and ran from? Even if they believe Derek is targeting them, wouldn’t questions along the line of, ‘So, is Derek the owner of that animal we just ran from, was he dressed up, or does said wild animal even have anything to do with him?’, be asked?

Lydia is largely convinced a mountain lion is behind all this, and that makes way more sense than Derek being the killer, but knuckling down, Scott insists he saw Derek do the killing. Also, Derek killed Laura, the bus driver, and the guy in the video store.

Not only is this stupid, it’s petty. He believes Derek is dead, and therefore, can’t go after him for making these accusations, but: He thinks Derek is dead.

Scott and Stiles could spin the wild animal, possibly a mountain lion, narrative. Lydia’s ready to believe it, and with a little coaxing, Jackson and Allison could be brought around.

Instead, he claims Derek not only killed his own sister but other people. If he did this knowing Derek were alive, it’d still be horrible. It’d would mess up Derek’s life, but at least, he’d have a chance at clearing his name and possibly changing the incorrect perceptions of him such accusations would bring. With Derek dead, though, Derek dies a murderer. He dies a man who killed his sister and other innocent people.

I’ve acknowledged Scott does have understandable reasons to dislike and distrust Derek, but nothing Derek has done to him has warranted this. There’s no greater good that can be served by doing this.

Jackson wants to call the cops, and Stiles refuses. Unhappy with what Scott just did, he nevertheless goes on: They don’t know what Derek might be armed with.

Lydia, Jackson, and Allison all saw the animal-like thing chasing them. Please, one of you three bring this up.

“Your dad is armed with an entire sheriff’s department. Call him!” Jackson insists.

It’s nice to review an episode where Jackson and Lydia both have moments of me rooting for them.

Lydia insists on calling, but it turns out, someone called to warn about prank calls.

1\. For all the ways I’d utterly unqualified to be in law enforcement, never mind run a sheriff’s station, here’s what I do: I have knowledge someone might make a prank call about something going down at a certain place. I probably wouldn’t have people stationed around said place. However, I make it clear, if a call does happen regarding said place, dispatch is to take enough time on the call to see if it could potentially be real.

In this case, a girl is claiming she and her friends are being chased by a murderer. Alright. Send two officers. One who would have the necessary experience to handle this if it’s real, one who can be spared if it’s not important.

Now, if no one’s there, and there’s no sign of a crime, I’d assign a few officers to try to find out who made the prank call. If someone’s there and it’s clear they made the prank call, haul them in, and then, decide what, if anything, I’m going to do about them breaking the law. If someone’s there and in danger, the officers will protect them.

I’m not sure what I’d do if prank calls suddenly became a huge problem, but I don’t think having dispatch hang up on a caller just because earlier someone said there might be a prank call later is a good idea.

2\. I don’t blame any of the teenagers for not thinking of this, but: Allison, Jackson, and Lydia all have phones. Start calling parents. Loan Scott a phone to call Melissa if Stiles refuses to loan his. Not only would Chris show up with guns, possibly other armed men, and potentially an armed Kate, but if Natalie, Melissa, and the Whittemore’s were suddenly calling the police and ordering them to get to the school to protect their kids, the police would take that seriously.

Scott and Stiles have a private conversation, and at least, Scott sort of acknowledges how bad what he did to Derek is. They think the alpha might have texted Allison due to wanting revenge on her family.

Maybe this is what Nurse Jennifer and whoever else might be involved with Peter thought, too. Except, whether someone’s trying to draw Gerard back or they just thought Peter would want to kill Allison, Peter’s not doing what they expect. He doesn’t have some strong moral code about not going after teenage girls, but he doesn’t care about the seventeen-year-old who was around 10/11-years-old when his family was killed. He doesn’t even care about Chris and Victoria, because, he knows they weren’t involved in it.

I mean, there is some evidence in later seasons he might have certain ambiguous feelings towards Chris, but he’s not targeting Chris or Victoria right now.

Jackson interrupts, and even with how nastily rude he is about, I don’t object to his insistence Stiles call Sheriff S.

When Jackson tries to take Stiles’s phone, Stiles punches him.

This episode shows there’s a connection between Peter and Jackson. The cause is most likely either the wound Derek gave Jackson or Jackson being, though not yet a manifested wolf, a Hale.

Here, Jackson laughs, and to me, this is a sign of Peter. Peter’s always found Stiles interesting, and here this scrawny, clever kid is punching the lacrosse captain.

This might provide an answer to a thought I had: As established, Jackson has his own phone. I understand he might not have Sheriff S’s personal number, but he could find the non-emergency police line on his own, call it, and try to either explain the situation or get Sheriff S on the phone.

After the punch, Stiles finally calls, but he gets Sheriff S’s voicemail. I understand others might not, but on a dark humour level, I find this funny.

Alpha Peter starts breaking through the barrier, and they all run.

Getting into the chemistry classroom, Scott asks how many people can fit in Jackson’s car. The answer is, it’d be a tight fit, but all of them.

Allison shows a lack of priorities when she snits she barely fit in the back.

Jackson didn’t say it’d be comfortable, just that it could conceivably be done.

Scott decides he’s going to get the keys from the dead night janitor so that they can get on the roof, go down the fire escape, and get to Jackson’s car.

Lydia gets the idea of making a self-igniting Molotov cocktail.

The problem is, when she does, she asks Jackson to hand her one thing, and either due to Peter’s control or not knowing which jar contains what, he gives her the wrong one. She should have just gotten it herself.

Allison insists Scott not going out due to the fact Derek’s killed three people.

For the love of God, someone bring up the fact the thing chasing them isn’t human.

There are a lot of things I can wave away with the fact it was likely unreliable narration, but this isn’t one of them.

Breaking down, Allison tearfully calls Scott a terrible liar and declares he’s been lying all night. She begs him not to go.

Jackson is smirking at this scene, and I think this is another subtle hint of Peter. For all he’s jerk, Jackson wouldn’t take pleasure in this. Now, Peter, knowing an Argent is literally crying over a werewolf’s safety, on the other hand…

Scott insists on going, and Allison grabs him for a kiss.

I’m not completely buying this, but I can’t definitely say it didn’t happen like this.

Scott leaves, and eventually, he comes across the night janitor’s body. This scene was needlessly long.

In the chemistry classroom, Allison is freaking out, and Jackson calms her. Both Stiles and Lydia are silently unhappy/uneasy at this.

The show has been building up a potential thing between Allison and Jackson, but I tend not to pay attention to it. I always knew they weren’t going to be a couple, and regardless of any plans there were for season 3 before Haynes left, I was right.They have a few moments, but they ended season 2 as essentially nothing to one another. She was heading off to France, and to him, all the things he’d done to her were a drop in the bucket compared to the other issues and relationships he needed to work through.

Elsewhere, Scott gets the keys.

Back to the others, Lydia realises Jackson might have handed her the wrong thing for the cocktail.

Sure enough, the cocktail doesn’t work when Scott tries to use it. Attacking, alpha Peter gets right on top of Scott, and then, he lets out a growl/howl/roar.

I’m not sure how to word this, but Jackson and Lydia both react to the supernatural element of it, whereas, Stiles and Allison both react like humans hearing a loud noise.

Alpha Peter leaves, but Scott and Jackson both convulse and scream. Stiles notices the wound Derek left on Jackson.

When Scott shifts, the hold abates, and Jackson is able to regain some measure of control.

Wandering around the school in werewolf form, Scott hears Jackson and Lydia arguing. She wants to know about the wound, and he replies, “As you if you actually care.”

She does, but neither of them can show their caring in a normal, healthy way at this point.

Scott gets to the chemistry classroom, and there’s a cool shot of his clawed hand inserting the key. Hearing Allison, though, brings memories of her, and his human hand breaks the key in the lock.

Then, the four hear sirens approaching.

There’s a shot of human Scott on all fours.

Finally, Sheriff S is talking to Scott and Stiles, and Scott continues to insist Derek was the murderer.

“I saw him, too,” Stiles loyally pipes up.

Scott asks about the night janitor, but the police are having trouble finding the body.

Then, Scott annoys me by whining about the fact Sheriff S would like to believe him but doesn’t.

He’s flat-out, deliberately lying.

Thankfully, this has never happened to me during a situation involving a police investigation, but there have been instances in my life where I had to deal with someone who didn’t believe I was lying but did believe I was mistaken/wrong about something. And yes, it sucked, but in those instances, I was telling the truth. I believed myself right. I did all I could to try to do the right thing despite their doubt.

If I were the type to lie, I’d probably take a reaction like the sheriff’s as a sort of win. Because, then, if the lie were revealed, I might have a chance at keeping some credibility. Being non-maliciously wrong is better than being known as a liar.

Add the fact lying about a person committing murder is a big no-no that might get the liar sent to prison, and he really, really shouldn’t be complaining about the fact the sheriff feels sorry for him and just thinks he might be mistaken rather than actively lying.

Moving on, Sheriff S promises the entire school will be searched. Telling them to stay, he goes to talk to some officers.

Scott says he thinks the alpha wants him to kill his old pack in order to join the alpha’s pack. The order of said pack is: Allison, Jackson, Lydia, and finally, Stiles. His mother isn’t mentioned at all.

Really? He’s placing Jackson and Lydia above Stiles? They don’t like him, and he doesn’t like them. They aren’t even in a clique with him, let alone a pack.

Scott confesses, when his shift was triggered, he wanted to kill the others.

I’m pretty sure that was just the moon amplifying his already conflicted emotions.

Noticing Deaton in an ambulance, they go over. Attributing being alive to Scott, Deaton says, “I think I owe you a raise.”

Sheriff S guides them away, and seeing Allison, Scott goes over to her.

She breaks up with him due to the fact she knows she can’t trust him.

I hate that she’s in pain, but she’s absolutely doing the right thing here.

Fin.


End file.
